Senator Russell Pearce will work with other states on immigration law

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, announced Saturday that he'll work to see Arizona's controversial new immigration law mirrored in a third of the country.

Pearce said he is working with representatives in the 18 other states to draft the legislation.

"It will be the law of the land," Pearce said to a few hundred participating in a support rally for SB1070. "We're not waiting on Washington, D.C."

Pearce was one of several speakers attending a rally this afternoon at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza near the state Capitol.

The Tea Party Road Trip - Arizona Buycott event is sponsored by a tea party group from Orlando, Fla. that made a three-day trip to the Valley.

One of the speakers attending, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said the next time he came to the plaza, he hoped to see a statue of Pearce.

Tancredo has attended other such rallies in the Valley, supporting the new law. "I and millions of Americans are all Arizonans," he said. "We know what you are dealing with. You have started a revolution for the rule of law."

Arizona's immigration law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.